Family Stories

For one Royal Navy veteran, Reading Force has “created a strong emotional connection to reading and to the military community” for his blended family.    Jamie Phillips joined the Royal Navy at the age of 16 and proudly served for 20 years as a Warfare Rating. Over his career, he served on both Type 42 and Type 45 Destroyers and left the service as a Chief Gunner. Since leaving the service, he has signed up to Reading Force after hearing about the charity from a Reading Force Ambassador.    A Sense of Belonging    [...]

Are you a military spouse or partner who is on the move? Joins us to meet new friends, find out about your new local area and enjoy a great read! With generous funding from The Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust, Reading Force is delighted to participate in their Serving Families: On the Move programme from now until early 2028. This programme aims to improve the quality of life for Service families who are impacted by relocation as a direct result of Service life. Our amazing coordinators in each of the three [...]

We really love hearing from young people and discovering how they have experienced Reading Force, so we were thrilled when Molly said she would share her story. Please give a warm welcome to Molly, our fantastic guest blogger, who writes about sharing books with her dad and how they stay connected… My dad works on the HMS Prince of Wales in the Navy. He has just left for a near eight-month deployment. When he leaves, I get a rush of emotions from upset to happy that the countdown begins to December, till he is home [...]

The Children’s Isolation Book Project is a wonderful example of a creative response to lockdown, and we’re very pleased to welcome Juliette Jones, who came up with the project, as our guest blogger. Below she talks about the project which has led to a book, and why she’s donating the book’s profits to Reading Force… What did you do over lockdown? It was a strange time, that’s for sure, and still is in a lot of ways. Twelve children from Hampshire used their time to pen thirteen short stories for a new book celebrating the resilience and [...]

The Blakesleys are a military family currently serving in Kuwait. Paul commissioned into the Infantry in 1994, and he and Karen (a qualified Head Teacher on a career break) have two sons, Maxwell (15) and Nathaniel (12). The boys attend Ellesmere College and The Dragon School respectively. The family have lived in Catterick, Warminster, Wilton, North Luffenham, Pirbright, the US, Germany, Cyprus. They will move to Izmir, Turkey, in late 2020. The Blakesleys are avid readers and have been members of Reading Force since 2013. For this series of blogs we asked the Blakesleys to talk about their current experience of [...]

The Scott siblings opening Reading Force post I’ve had a familiar feeling in my stomach for the last week or so, as we prepare for the arrival of something we can’t see but know is coming. Talking to my Reading Force colleagues this morning, I suddenly realised what it was – the feeling I always got when preparing for an unaccompanied tour. It’s a combination of emotions: uncertainty, knowing that I wanted to hold my family close; having enough resources to support us all and keeping us thinking about anything other than a long separation. And [...]